Sales Navigator

Challenge • In�uence decision makers at prospective accounts

• Develop connections with members of buying committees

• Leverage relationships of sales colleagues

• Shorten sales cycles

Solution• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Lead Builder

• TeamLink

• Who’s Viewed My Pro�le

Why LinkedIn? • Optimizes social selling

• Helps strengthen sales relationships

• Access to easier, faster tools for building sales pipeline

• Insights on prospects help shorten sales cycle

Results • Average sales cycle time down by 20 days

• 30% higher engagement by sales reps with prospects

• Increased conversion rates of leads to opportunities by 25%

• Increased more than 15% of reps exceeding sales quota

• Less time spent on manual tasks, more time for selling

• Improved access to buying committees-no more “single-threaded” sales

Reaching key decision makers to close sales Eloqua, based in Vienna, Virginia, has grown steadily since its founding in 1999 thanks to its Revenue Performance Management solutions, which help companies uncover the business insights that inform marketing and sales strategies – and therefore, drive revenue. The company’s sales team numbers about 60.

The process of educating enterprises on the value of Eloqua is a complex one, involving reaching out to many decision makers. “We need to connect with buying committees when we’re advocating for Eloqua – and that’s a time-consuming process,” explains Jill Rowley, known as the “EloQueen” at Eloqua due to her sales prowess (she was named the company’s Employee of the Year in 2011). “It also means we need to build relationships with several people at the targeted companies, so that the sales cycle isn’t ‘single-threaded’ – in other words, we want to get to know several people on a buying committee to strengthen our sales approach.”

EloquaCase StudyTransforming social selling with LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best tool our sales team has for our social and target account selling initiative.”

Dennis Dresser, VP Americas Sales, Eloqua

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Finding and engaging with prospects One of Rowley and her Eloqua colleague’s biggest challenges was identifying key decision makers in an ef�cient way. LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s ability to uncover and organize connections provides a signi�cant boost in productivity. For instance, the Eloqua team uses LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator’s Lead Builder tool to quickly build comprehensive account lists. “Being able to build the list of leads via LinkedIn, and to have the 50 named accounts that we cover on this account list, helps us save time and keeps us organized,” Rowley explains.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Lead Builder also help the Eloqua sales team prioritize their outreach efforts. “It tells us if we’re dealing with a �rst-level connection or a second-level connection, so that we can take a closer look at the strengths of those connections,” Rowley explains. “It’s about not only saving time but better prioritizing our time.”

With LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s TeamLink feature, Rowley and her colleagues can tap into each other’s connections. “TeamLink takes my network of more than 3,000 connections and makes them available to everyone within Eloqua,” Rowley says. “We can surface connections for all of our sales reps in the early stage of the buying process – which gives us a huge competitive advantage.”

Rowley also uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator to proactively reach out to people who may be interested in Eloqua and its services. The Who’s Viewed My Pro�le tool lets the Eloqua sales team identify exactly who has looked at their LinkedIn pro�le. “I like being able to see who’s been looking at my pro�le, especially if it’s someone at a company I’ve been trying to reach out to,” Rowley explains. “Once I know who’s been browsing my pro�le, I can check out their own pro�le, read their recommendations, see the LinkedIn Groups they’ve joined, and ask them to connect with me.”

30% increase in engagement for faster deal closing, insights into prospects and their business challenges“Since we began using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, we’ve seen a 30% increase in engagement of our reps with the companies we’re targeting – which dramatically boosts our chances of getting these accounts into our sales pipeline,” says Dennis Dresser, vice president of sales/Americas for Eloqua. “This gives us faster time to deal close, and more time to spend on selling.”

For Rowley, LinkedIn Sales Navigator can make the difference when building a relationship that leads to a sale. “We recently closed a sale with a company where I know the chief marketing of�cer, but I had no relationships on the sales side,” Rowley explains. “I saw that Dennis was connected to the sales director, and asked him to reach out to the connection and talk to them about their marketing needs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator helped us get these insights so that we could breathe life into the deal, and move the sales process forward.”

LinkedIn isn’t just another sales tool, says Rowley: “It’s part of everything we do when we interact with customers and prospects, all day long,” she says. “We spend less time doing manual tasks, and more time selling. And we can connect with executive-level and board-level people who make key buying decisions, helping us to close more sales faster.”

To learn more please visit http://sales.linkedin.com orwww.slideshare.net/linkedin-sales-solutions

Rowley and her Eloqua colleagues have been longtime users of LinkedIn for researching and connecting with these decision makers, and learning more about companies’ unique challenges in improving revenue performance. However, they realized that by upgrading to the paid version of LinkedIn, and by using the “social selling” features that are part of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, they could ramp up their ability to connect with even more decision makers and play a more active role promoting the bene�ts of Eloqua.

“LinkedIn Sales Navigator is now my number-one social selling resource, and it’s made a tremendous difference in how my colleagues and I manage the process of reaching prospects,” explains Rowley.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is now our number-one social selling resource, and it’s made a tremendous difference in how my colleagues and I manage the process of reaching prospects.”

Jill Rowley, EloQueen, Eloqua

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